Hello, and welcome to the Los Angeles Bread Bakers blog! On this blog, we will be chronicling our journey growing wheat in Southern California, discussing the meaning of this endeavor, and explaining both our process and the history behind this important experiment. Look forward to information on California landrace wheat, photographs from planting and—eventually—harvesting, and figures and facts about the project.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

The Black Einkorn and Russian Timopheevi show early leaf and root development.

Timopheevi

The soft white Sonora has developed some plant height as the distance between leaf nodes increases. The inflorescence, or fruiting body, is just beginning its travels up the elongating pseudo stem. The Emmer is approaching boot stage, with the seed head nearing the flag leaf, at the top of the pseudo stem.

Emmer

Sonora

Much of the Vavilov is in boot stage, or showing a swollen boot.

The Brazilian Lavras is perhaps the most remarkable. Several show fully emerged seed heads, with very long awns.

Awns on Flag Leaf

while other plants
reveal just the tips of their awns above the flag leaf collar as the
heads begin to emerge.

The India Jammu is currently in the lead, showing most of the heads in anthesis, or blossoming stage. This means only final seed development and ripening remain before harvest.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Seven varieties of wheat are growing, side-by-side, in Westchester's Emerson Avenue Community Garden, located on the grounds of Orville Wright Middle School. Two land race varieties mark the far end of the row.

India Jammu Sonora

On the left is India Jammu, developed by farmers in northern India. Grist & Toll contributed the seed for this planting.

On the right is soft white Sonora, grown from seed contributed by Kenter Canyon Farms.

Sonora, with India Jammu in the background

You can see the relative pace of development in these different varieties. At this stage, the India Jammu, in the background, is taller. The Sonora shows a shorter, more dense growth.

Plots just to the north include varieties from Russia and Brazil, along with Emmer and an ancient Black Einkorn.

Timopheevi Emmer Brazilian Lavras Vavilov Black Einkorn

Timopheevi, also known as Zanduri, is widely grown in Russia's western Georgia region. A hard red tetraploid wheat, first domesticated in southern Turkey. Like its ancestors, Timopheevi is a hulled wheat. Bluebird Grain Farms provided organic seed for the Emmer plot which is developing well and showing colorful pseudo stems.

Timopheevi Emmer

Brazilian Lavras Vavilov

Brazilian Lavras is an amber wheat, with a reputation for growing to more than six feet.

Vavilov, a hard red winter wheat dates from the 1920s and is named for Nikolai Vavilov, likely to be the man who developed it, and certainly one of the world's foremost agronomists and plant breeders.

During a time of enormous need for his country, Vavilov sent out 140 expeditions from Russia to 40 countries, assembling a collection of more than 200,000 species. He was a leader in restoring Russia's ability to feed its people. Ironically, he was caught up in Stalinist purges and died of starvation in the gulag. Vavilov wheat is considered rare and is being grown and evaluated by seed companies and universities.

Black Einkorn, considered the oldest cultivated wheat, is not widely grown today.

It has a reputation for doing well on poor soils and is known for its flat black seed heads. In the Emerson garden it has yet to develop much height, but if it sets heads, we expect those ancient berries will be a challenge to unhusk.

You can visit the garden and see the wheat plots on school days from 4pm to sunset and on weekends from 9am to sunset. The wheat demonstration plots are related to Dana Morgan's LA School
Wheat Project which gives students the opportunity to plant, grow, and
harvest wheat, right in their school gardens. For more info about the
LA School Wheat Project contact: danahmorgan@gmail.com

Sunday, April 6, 2014

And some interesting progress in our front yard, across town. Some of the Sonora, planted on New Year's day, is
more than four feet tall, with heads that seem quite large.

The kernels are in four rows, each of which has ten or twelve berries. The plants which lodged (tipped over) in the February downpour have recovered and are now standing on their own.

Three different small test plots of India-Jammu are showing off. Shorter
and less verdant than the Sonora, the plots seemed thin and rather spindly.But recently we have seen significant enlargement of the
seed heads after blossoming.

India Jammu in blossom

India Jammu three weeks ago, approaching boot stage.

Impression
is that the plants are focusing on the seed, rather than lush leaf development.

Multiple India Jammu seed heads in soft/medium dough stage.

Complex seed rows

They
have not shown any vulnerability to lodging. Most of the heads are approaching maturity and are now in hard dough stage. It is possible that their shorter growth and less lush foliage gives this variety improved drought resistance.

While the India Jammu is mostly headed out, two areas of Red Fife are in
boot stage, just beginning to emerge. Where the two varieties were
planted in partial shade, the India Jammu is past the blossom stage,
while the Red Fife is less than half as tall and not yet in boot.

A plot of Kamut, planted in January, is setting heads which are remarkable for having extremely long awns. Some of the awns, or beards, are significantly longer than the seed heads. This variety seems vigorous and is almost as tall as the Sonora. The wide, lush foliage does not suggest this is a drought tolerant strain.

Test plots of Red Fife Kamut Emmer (Durum in foreground)

Awns emerging

Kamut heads with very long awns

A test plot of Emmer (Farro) is three feet tall, but not yet in boot stage. And recently planted Durum only a few inches high, with three or four leaves so far.

Four week old Durum, with 10 week Emmer behind

Two very small test plots of soft white spring wheat are showing heads. Louise was released by Washington State University in 2005. It has a quite unique head shape. Surprise was developed in the 1870s by Cyrus Pringle of Charlotte Vermont. In 1919 USDA records show more than 60,000 acres of Surprise were planted in the U.S. In this test plot, both varieties are quite short, but that may be the result of shallow soil conditions.